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Download the FAO VCA-Tool  This analytical tool allows users to systematically gather, store and manage data for the implementation of cost-benefit and value-added analyses. Users can build different scenarios and analyze the socio-economic impact of various policies — such as domestic prices liberalization, opening to international trade, new technologies adoption. Users can use the software to build a baseline scenario which corresponds to a benchmark situation; once users generate the policy measures or changes in the value chain, their impacts will modify the original reference scenario.  The software is the complementary tool to the "Value Chain Analysis for Policy Making: Methodological Guidelines for [...]

Forest genetic resources (FGR) are the heritable materials maintained within and among tree and other woody plant species that are of actual or potential economic, environmental, scientific or societal value. They are crucial to the adaptation and protection of our ecosystems, landscapes and production systems, yet are subject to increasing pressures and unsustainable use. This Global Plan of Action identifies 27 strategic priorities grouped into 4 areas: 1) improving the availability of, and access to, information on FGR; 2) conservation of FGR (in situ and ex situ); 3) sustainable use, development and management of FGR; 4) policies, institutions and capacity-building. Implementation [...]

Developing countries are increasingly using agrocorridors to develop their agricultural sectors. These corridors promote inclusive agribusiness growth, building on a linear agglomeration of people and activities along existing transportation infrastructure. Based on initiatives in Central Asia, the Greater Mekong Subregion, Indonesia, Mozambique, Peru and the United Republic of Tanzania, this report shows how agrocorridors help improve physical connectivity and functioning of markets, while generating economies of scale in agriculture. Agrocorridors do this because they integrate public and private investments in “hardware” (transport and agribusiness infrastructure), “software” (policy and regulatory framework) and “orgware” (institutional strengthening and capacity building). The goal of [...]

Aimed at policy-makers, project designers and field practitioners, this publication provides the conceptual foundation for a new set of FAO handbooks on sustainable food value chain development. It defines the concept of a sustainable food value chain, presents a development paradigm that integrates the multidimensional concepts of sustainability and value added, highlights ten guiding principles, and discusses the potential and limitations of the approach. By doing so, this handbook makes a strong case for placing sustainable food value chain development at the heart of any strategy aimed at reducing poverty and hunger in the long run.

This framework helps practitioners and researchers to use political economy analysis to understand and respond to practical problems. The framework has three dedicated, but related, phases: problem identification, problem diagnosis and consideration of plausible change processes. In this introductory note we describe the key components of the framework, the relationships between them and how to use the framework to undertake analysis. Annex 1 contains a diagram of the overall framework. Annex 2 provides a glossary of key terms.

Gender equality is central to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ (FAO’s) mandate to achieve food security for all by raising levels of nutrition, improving agricultural productivity and natural resource management, and improving the lives of rural populations. FAO can achieve its goals only if it simultaneously works towards gender equality and supports women’s diverse roles in agriculture and rural development. Gender equality is not only an essential means by which FAO can achieve its mandate, it is also a basic human right. Available in French and Spanish.

This Guidance Note is a practical tool for practitioners who want to integrate the right to food into food and nutrition security programmes. It builds a bridge between the normative dimensions of the right to food and practical work on programme design, implementation and monitoring at country level. This tool does so by briefly explaining the conceptual, legal and operational dimensions of the right to food. Then it looks at four key entry points for integrating the right to food into food and nutrition security programmes: roles and responsibilities of stakeholders, legal aspects, monitoring, and recourse and claim mechanisms. Then [...]

These guidelines provide users with the key notions required to carry out analyses of policy impacts by means of a value chain approach and show how to do it in a practical way by making use of relevant tools. In particular, the reader will find this material useful to: Identify the basic units operating in a given value chain (=agents) and the activities they undertake; Quantify the gross revenues, value added creation and profits of every agent; Build different scenarios and measure changes in revenues, value added creation and profits for the different scenarios; Build a Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and compute protection and [...]

This study, developed jointly with the Geneva academy of humanitarian law and human rights, aims to provide guidance on how the right to adequate food can best be integrated into the two frameworks ”The Global Strategic Framework for Food Security and Nutrition (GSF)” and “the UN Comprehensive Framework for Action (CFA)”. Formed as both an analytical and practical tool, the study divided into four main sections: the evolution of the right to adequate food and the rights-based approach to the fight against hunger; an introduction to the CFA/UCFA as well as the GSF; possible ways to introduce the right to adequate [...]

The FAO project, Articulating and mainstreaming agricultural trade policy and support measures, was implemented during 2008-2010. With a view to maximize the contribution of trade to national development, a process has been underway in many developing countries to mainstream trade and other policies into national development strategy such as the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP). A similar process of mainstreaming is strongly advocated, and underway, for trade-related support measures, inc luding through the Aid for Trade initiative. In view of this, there is a high demand for information, analyses and advice on best approaches to undertaking these tasks. It was [...]